Ask The Admin (03/26/2012)

[lanzer]

Hello everyone!

As fans of Adventure Time we had a blast with the Adventure Time event and it was great being able to chat with Pendleton Ward. Hope many of you enjoys the show and the event.

Welcome to this week's ATA!

[biglanky14]

Hi everyone,

We have a few updates on some topics that have come up in the last few ATAs.

Alchemy
This isn't necessarily a major update, but we wanted to let you know what we're working on. Details are still being kicked around, but we want to take some of the chance out of the process where we can, and give you guys an element of choice (such as with the Philosopher's Cache). Like I said, we're not totally there yet and we're not going to go to a "full choice" system (just to make sure I'm not setting crazy expectations), but we're working on some ideas here. Hopefully we'll have something for you to check out sooner rather than later.

zOMG
We're now working on the bug list we've prioritized, so you'll see some of them get fixed pretty shortly. We also are planning to recycle last year's Easter Event (yay!).

Ok, that's it for now....

[Panagrammic]

Lurking, mostly, but will occasionally snipe questions.

[MrsrachaelSnape]

Hi lanzer and others.

1. What the updates on Alchemy? There a thread here -http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/site-feedback/gaia-stop-ignoring-alchemy-admin-response-p-6/t.78731175/
that give great ideas. I heard you guys had a meeting on it can you tell us anything that you came up with in that meeting?

another idea a user came up with was this-

2. What going on with past contests , were there any winner for- Gaia Fortune Cookie Contest?

3. Vampires on gaia , can they get drunk?

[Crystal Sparda]

╔══════════════════❀══════════════════╗

Hello admin and devs!
I had BEAUTIFUL rainbow cake yesterday for my brother's birthday!
It was delicious! He took most of it to work with him
to share with his coworkers, so sadly none left for you. :[
ON TO THE QUESTIONS!

1. Just checking in on mod apps. They going okay? ' w '

2. Do the Gaia artists ever do art freebies? I'm on an avi art binge. 'A'
{FEEEEEEEED MEEEE, SEYMOUR! rofl }

3. Pleeeease tell us that your rubber duckies will be made into items?
So many of them were so cute! I want a bunch of duckies!

4. Carbon said that the Marketplace Preview feature was fixed.
I beg to differ. I see no difference between two days ago and today.
Many other users in the bugs forum agree.
PLZ FIX 4 REAL THIS TIME?

5. Oh, and has the March MC contest winner been chosen?
Haven't heard any news from DJ Helsing...

╚══════════════════════════════════════╝

[.~.Lady_Aji.~.]

Evening, Lanzer.

I gotta ask. Do you even know what's going on with this site anymore? In past ATAs, you've made promises left and right. Then, when those promises aren't met, you either blame the users or come up with some other lame excuse. Either communicate more with the staff so you know what's going on or let somebody else run the ATA. Cause I'm tired of all the false promises and lip service.

[Existential Existence]

A lot of people have frustrations with the <3/</3 thread rating system. It's an effective system in SF because <3/</3 has an accepted premise of meaning "i (dis)like this idea", but everywhere else the rating system becomes ambiguous. Also a lot of people tend to perceive </3's/dislikes as social feedback rather than feedback about the threads people make themselves.

Over the past months complaints about the </3 system, or people wanting an option to disable </3 in their threads, have been constant:

2.9 days ago
7.1 days ago
2.3 weeks ago
2.7 months ago
2.8 months ago
3.7 months ago
4.7 months ago
7.3 months ago
10.9 months ago
15.3 months ago
16.5 months ago
16.9 months ago

I found these threads via using the search word "dislike" for thread titles...there are probably more out there.

The thing about the </3 system is that in SF it is particulary useful, so every time someone makes a thread about wanting </3 optional, of course the idea is going to get downvoted to hell, which I think gives passing staff the impression that people don't want it optional. But that's SF. That's not the rest of Gaia. The only time ya'll ever looked for feedback on the </3 system is when you guys made that one thread asking for input before the rating system was pushed out...additionally, that feedback thread was, of course, placed in SF...where a <3/</3 system is useful.

But other forums areas on Gaia have held complaints about how other users are abusing the </3 system as a way to harass others. A lot of times, </3 is used as a way to vent against topic creators if people do not like the topic creator as a person...not because they dislike the topic itself. This has created a rather negative experience for people who make/create topics around Gaia.

QUESTION: Is there any way to get devs/staff to re-evaluate this rating system, taking into consideration feedback from other forums, not just Site Feedback (where in SF, </3 is particularly useful and even justified to have...everywhere else it is used rather crappily)?

The biggest suggestion going on out there is to make it an optional feature, where thread creators can opt in/opt out of allowing a thread rating to apply to their thread.

You guys may not know it but a sizable number your users are hypersensitive to social feedback/indicators social judgment. The </3 button is a real big issue when it comes to contributing to real anxiety for making new topics around Gaia. Not everyone wants to see this type of thing in their daily forum experience. Not even facebook has a dislike button, and they seem adamant that one will never come to their social network website. Youtube allows it's video-makers to disable liking/disliking.

The <3/</3 dynamic does not have the same premise or interpretation in any one forum or any one thread, except in SF where it's universally accepted to mean "agree/disagree" (in most cases). In some threads, such as quest threads, the </3 button is even useless and IMO is only used by people to hate on other people's quests.

According to what staff has said in the past, people wanted the dislike button. However, that assumption was made before <3/</3 was pushed out, and that assumption was made in a thread in SF where a dislike option is actually useful. Every time someone makes a complaint about the </3 button in SF, of course the thread is going to get a lot of </3's because in that forum the feature is actually useful/doing it's job. However, clearly, via the steady/constant complaint threads that pop up by users about the <3/</3 system, not everyone wants the dislike button.
add: check my tip jar, people agree! ;D woo gold! i'm rich!!! thanks for the tips!

[Fractale]

1:When are we getting a continuation of the main manga plot with Meili, Don Kuro, Gino, Sentinel, Overseer, and Zhivago?

2: Why do you guys insist on putting Diedrich into so many events? Don't you guys think he's getting way too much of the spotlight; having been in nearly every event since he was first introduced?

3: How do you decide on which user item suggestions to make, out of certain forums?

4: Olympics for summer event, this year? Will the Orcs, Centaurs, and Imps be brought back?

5: Have you guys forgotten about the CrossStitch entry winners?

[Platonix]

USEFUL LINKS

The home of past Ask The Admin topics: Ask the Admin Archives subforum

AskED the Admin: Answer Compilation (built and maintained by yours truly)

[Razumi Yazura]

Hey, guys. Hope you're all doing well this fine evening.

(Thank you for fixing the AutoCash problem that many of us were having, by the way.)

I have some pretty big concerns and I know that it's a subject that you guys may not love to answer. It's about Alchemy. I thank Lanky for replying to me a bit about this, but I would still like to address this matter.

I have a very close friend that has been working on crafting the Aurora Kitten Star. I have helped her as much as I can to gather the components. Once they were all gathered to craft the soul crystal required to make the kitten, we thought the hard part was over.

We were sadly mistaken.

After the initial 9 failed attempts at crafting the kitten star, we thought "This is insane. This can't be right." I funded her to try more attempts, but it resulted in more fails. After 16 failed attempts at crafting the kitten, we've decided to stop. A total of 16 million gold going towards failed attempts was getting out of hand. My friend has spent a lot of RL money on Gaia Cash to try and make this kitten and still does not have the finished product. Several people have tried to help her with the crafting fee and it's still failing.

While I understand that success rate is low and fails happen, I feel that Alchemy's success rate should taper. The percentage of failure should decrease after every failed attempt. If not, there should be a point where the success rate changes a bit. Judging by what is happening to this particular formula, the success rate is static. It potentially can chain fail for a very long time. For a formula that requires 1 million each crafting attempt, this is absurd. Especially when the components were already hard to attain to begin with. I've had level 10 formulas crafted before with no fail rates, but had high success rate. Why is it that formulas with components that are easily attained have an easier success rate than formulas that have much harder attained components? That seems rather backwards to me.

While we do not expect to see the gold back and were prepared to see fails, a total of 16 times with no end product is concerning. It's alarming. The balancing of the success rate and how it functions needs to be adjusted.

We don't want her to try any more crafting attempts since it may cause her further stress if it continues to fail. At its current state, it's too upsetting to even look at.

[Constipated Trillionaire]

So ComtesseNicoleDeLancret, worlds suckiest vendor, and I have finally made it to the last level of the Demonic Quest. Can't say we're surprised, but was the your goal to never have anyone complete the quest? If so you've done a pretty good job! Every level combined up until the last formula takes 800 components roughly, and the last level itself takes roughly 1700 components to finish.

Since last I heard you guys we're having to crunch a lot of data I figured I would help you out a little!

Here is a list of all the components needed to finish the demonic quest and the amount of each component needed:


Bloodgrass 52
Chicken Fletchings 15
Anycolor Dyes 5
Demon's Sweat 1
Sacred key 1
Salt 80
Sea Water 100
Giant Squid Ink 4
Sulfur 39
Mandrake Root 6
Nightshade 6
Succubus Blood 22
Succubus Bone 6
Adamantium 13
Hippogriff Talon 4
Troll Snot 1
Growth Formula 5
Basilisks Teeth 5
Moonbeam 51
Wizard Leaf 2
Dust of Time 17
Severed Soul 22
Bahamut's Bone 2
Amphithere's Feather 3
Witch hazel 10
Wolf Pelt 10
Dhampir Blood 24
Troll's Wart 7
Smooth Whetstone 160
Scissors 2
Alligator's Skin 35
Alligator's Teeth 14
Bat Fat 35
Bigfoot Foot 7
Golem's Scalp 7
Lace Fungus 24
Monkey's Paw 7
Lotus Petal 7
Raven's Beak 7
Empty Bottle 16
Fish Oil 120
Zombie Goo 21
Mysterious Mold 20
Cyclops Eye 1
Fairy Toenail Clippings 5
Golem's Toe 1
Monstrous Tooth 2
Griffin talon 3
Raven's Feet 15
Gravite 6
Maggot Butter 55
Haunted Objects 55
Silver Token 10
Rusty tacks 35
Mineral Water 95
Mirror Shards 35
Halogen Cloud 14
Hellium Bubble 14
Lava Jelly 7
Beeswax Loaf 70
Cinderblock 35
Go Berry 14
Zurg Skin 7
Steel Plate 70
Gold Foil 14
Monotite 35
Cosmic Cell 7
Aconite Root 5
Hemlock 25
SS Venom 8
Calcium Scraps 45
Dried Seahorse 15
Geoduck's Shell 15
Mermaid Scales 6
Wriggling Tentacles 45
Unidentified Object 3
Obsidian 20
Onyx 20
Tiger's Eye 55
Topaz 55
Ruby 20
Alphyn's Tongue 13
Bakunawa's Red Tongue 13
Basilisks Tongue 10
Leviathan's Fin 6
Leviathan's Scale 6
Alphyn's Scale 3
Bakunawa's Whisker 3
Sunbeam 25
Copper Token 6
Slothbeetle's Carapace 60
Licorice 120
Unicorn Tear 13
Sugar Crystals 30
Wisp Of Cloud 12
Snow Jelly 6
Golden Apple Seed 6
Fire Salt 6
Cinnamon 60
Platinum Peach Pit 12
Fiery Curse 12
Noble Spirit 2
Amber 20
Aquamarine 4
Peridot 4
Sapphire 4
Quartz 4
Jade 2
Diamond 2
Crushed Gemstones 9
Phoenix's Tear 3
Cherub Feather 19
Dryad's Tears 3
Bag Of Petals 20
Elf Locks 2
Showgirl Scales 10
Golden Webbing 2
Siren's Larynx 1
Glass Marbles 20
Bindweed 10
Geode 5
Amphithere's Scale 1
Dragon Guts 1

Now you'll notice that I've highlighted a few select components that you need an insane amount of to complete the quest. Perhaps you can tell me why these components are some of the hardest components to pull from a cache? Is it you intention to make some of the most needed components some of the hardest to get? That just seems plain stupid, I can understand making something like the elf locks hard to get, you only need need 2 and most all the other formulas out there require a couple at most, not something like 10. Myself and others have crafted 1000s of caches in search of just a few impossible to pull components. My team and I can go through 200+ caches without pulling just 1 sea water or 1 smooth whetstone. (This is just for demonic, I'm sure you guys can do the same for the other quest and then you'll be able to see what other components need to be given higher priority in the caches)

You actually moved in the right direction when you made the caches easier to craft, I have no problem making 25+ a day(besides having to buy those lousy pancakes, please make it so you can buy in bulk). But when 75% of the stuff I get out of them is more or less useless it really doesn't help. You keep saying you don't want to flood the market when in reality you already have. You've forced people to craft tons of caches in search of just a few things. I have hundreds of components that I have no use for and it does me no good to sell them because I can't use gold to buy what I can't find. If me and a few other people actually sold all that we have instead of just wanting to trade for stuff we do need the market would be flooded!

Additionally, it doesn't really take a lot of foresight to figure that these backwing quest are going to be the most popular items in alchemy. So you just might want to have the caches give out components so that things you need 100 of are a little easier to get compared to stuff like rough cloth, grass jelly, green goo, and so on. Not to mention just one person trying to finish just one quest makes it next to impossible for anyone else to try and finish one with the horribly low supply of components.

I'm not asking for you to make the quest super easy, I understand you want them to be hard. I'll let others address that issue. However, there is a difference between difficult and impossible. At this rate that we pull the most needed components we will have to open over 10,000 caches to just be able to possibly finish the last level, if you go buy the prices of caches in marketplace that's just 1,700,000,000g. You can't tell me that was your original intention?

In summary, there is a major problem with the supply of components. There are too many components given out that are needed in next to nothing and not in demand(rough cloth) while components that are in high demand and needed in large numbers(sea water) are incredibly hard to get from a cache. You could change the way caches give out components, or make it so heavily needed components can be gotten through an alternate and easier way.


Please don't even bother replying to this post if you're just going to give it a canned response like "we're still collecting data" or "we don't want to flood the market". There are some major issues with alchemy right now, issues that are incredibly clear to those that are heavily involved in alchemy. Perhaps you need to spend some time in alchemy from the users point of view!

[Zero Omega]

Crystal Sparda

╔══════════════════❀══════════════════╗

Hello admin and devs!
I had BEAUTIFUL rainbow cake yesterday for my brother's birthday!
It was delicious! He took most of it to work with him
to share with his coworkers, so sadly none left for you. :[
ON TO THE QUESTIONS!

1. Just checking in on mod apps. They going okay? ' w '

2. Do the Gaia artists ever do art freebies? I'm on an avi art binge. 'A'
{FEEEEEEEED MEEEE, SEYMOUR! rofl }

3. Pleeeease tell us that your rubber duckies will be made into items?
So many of them were so cute! I want a bunch of duckies!

4. Carbon said that the Marketplace Preview feature was fixed.
I beg to differ. I see no difference between two days ago and today.
Many other users in the bugs forum agree.
PLZ FIX 4 REAL THIS TIME?

╚══════════════════════════════════════╝

1. Very, very soon. ninja

I REMEMBER YOU! scream

As in, tonight soon.

[WideEyed]

Hi Guys! smile
Well, it’s Monday again, which means of course, time for us to get our weekly zOMG! update.
First off, I’d like to say thanks for fixing the zOMG! D.C.s, and for finalizing the BB refund.
I hope I speak for everyone when I say that we appreciate having those nagging issues put to rest. blaugh

Last week there were a number of things said which gave me some hope that, even though zOMG! will remain in maintenance mode for the foreseeable future, it is far from dead, and I’d like to follow up on those if it’s at all possible.
Re: Bug Fixes...Swarf posted a Topic in the z!F saying that he was working on bugs at the time, and soliciting our input, which I think is fantastic! smile Can you/he give us an update as to which specific bugs are being worked on, and if they’re making progress?
I know I would really love to see the Tutorial and Early Quest Chain Bugs given priority simply because it seems to me that they are the ones that would have the biggest impact on new recruits.

Also at last week’s ATA, DARKNRG suggested (unless he was answering another question and I misunderstood) that Swarf was actually investigating the possibility of automating the Server cycling process HERE, and I was wondering if I was correct in that, and if so, is it doable, and when it could possibly happen.

Last zOMG! question...It has also been mentioned that an Easter Event for zOMG! has been at least discussed at HQ. Could you bring us up to speed on those discussions?
Already Answered blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh blaugh

Finally, and hold on to your hats for this one, because it’s not zOMG! related.
I’ve seen it suggested in previous ATA’s that Gaia in general is “under merchandized”, and I for one would have to agree. I’ve been to the on-line store a number of times, and as much as I wanted to buy something, nothing has really caught my eye. As far as I can tell, the store hasn’t been updated in years, and it seems that there’s an opportunity being missed here.

Heck, even Storage Wars is selling merchandise these days!

Is any consideration being given to updating or expanding your offerings?
I suggested once that nice quality prints of some of zOMG!’s environments would certainly appeal to me. There was one example of a concept drawing Shallow Seas Concept that I would definitely buy if it were available, and it strikes me that there might be a number of ways to market Gaia, and zOMG! artworks very successfully.
Heck, who wouldn’t love a frameable screenie of their Crew just as they deal the final blow to the End Boss or Kamila, or an overview of some of zOMG!’s beautiful environments?
I know I have some bare wall space that is just crying out to be filled.
Also along Marketing lines, I was just a little disappointed when I attended Fan Expo in Toronto last year, and found no Gaia merchandise offered at the Panel. I realize that there’s probably shipping costs involved, but would they be so prohibitive as to rule out bringing some stuff to the Con’s?
I know I went there with a butt-load of money, and I spent pretty much all of it, and I’m planning on doing it again this summer. It would be great to be able to come home with a piece of Gaia merch personally autographed by DJ Helsing!
Just a thought.
Thanks again guys! (and gals! wink )

[Definitive Destiny]

Can I fix your flash games? Kthx.